The tension in the lecture hall, stretched to a breaking point, vanished in an instant, like air rushing out of a punctured ball.
Wang Huashao was the first to make a sound.
He slumped back in his chair as if his bones had been removed.
"Good god... All I can think about is overheating coils."
He let out a long groan, buried his face in his hands, and rubbed it hard.
Zhou Kai didn’t slump over.
He took a deep breath and stood up.
He ignored the still-groaning Wang Huashao and didn’t bother to pack up the pencil case on his desk, walking straight up to the lecturer’s platform.
Straight to the lecturer’s platform.
His goal was clear: the two sheets of scratch paper on the far right of the lecturer’s desk.
Miao Shian pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses and also stood up. He Gui, in the corner, hesitated for a moment before silently following behind Miao Shian.
In the middle of the front row.
Lin Yi wasn’t even looking toward the platform.
She casually stuffed the black gel pen into the pocket of her jeans, raised her hands over her head, and let out a huge, ungraceful yawn.
She propped her chin on one hand, gazing at the sky outside, which was already starting to turn yellow. Her eyes revealed the relief of finally being done with class.
Zhou Kai stood before the lecturer’s desk.
His head was bowed.
He was looking at the sheet of scratch paper with its flamboyant, almost arrogant handwriting and large blank spaces.
He gave a bitter smile.
He raised his head and turned around.
He looked at Lin Yi, who was sitting in the front row, rubbing her eyes.
"Captain."
Zhou Kai’s voice echoed in the empty classroom, tinged with a natural familiarity and a hint of resignation.
"You were way too ruthless with that one."
"I was still over there grinding away at calculus, trying to piece together infinitesimals, and you just skipped to the end in two steps. You didn’t leave me any face at all."
Lin Yi turned her head.
She looked at the vice-captain of the Provincial Experimental Middle School’s physics team, a guy she had always outshone.
And smiled.
It was a vibrant smile.
"Zhou Kai, I’ve told you so many times. Don’t be so obsessed with your pure mathematical derivations. Do too many calculations and your brain will turn to wood."
She tapped her fingers on the desk, making a soft TAP TAP sound.
"A stalled motor gives off smoke. That’s common sense. A factory worker would know that with their eyes closed."
"But you just had to force it with the infinitesimal method. Don’t you find that exhausting?"
In front of the lecturer’s desk.
Wang Huashao had wandered over at some point.
He craned his skinny, dark-complexioned neck, staring intently at Lin Yi’s scratch paper.
"No way..."
Wang Huashao grabbed his hair, an expression on his face like he’d just seen a ghost.
"Sister Lin Yi, you’re skipping way too many steps!"
"Where’s the force analysis? The equivalent circuit diagram? You don’t even have a rough sketch?"
"You just jumped straight to the conservation of energy like that?"
Lin Yi casually tucked a strand of hair that had fallen in front of her eyes behind her ear.
"The diagrams are in my head. Why write them out?"
She glanced at Wang Huashao, her tone carrying a hint of righteous teasing.
"To waste ink, or to waste time?"
The boys were momentarily speechless at her extremely down-to-earth remark.
Then, their gazes.
Silently shifted to the paper next to it.
Chen Zhuo’s scratch paper.
Wang Huashao, who had just been complaining about Lin Yi skipping steps,
sucked in a sharp breath the moment his eyes landed on the paper.
He subconsciously leaned in closer.
The surface of the paper was densely packed.
There were no intuitive leaps, only a cold, mechanical, brute-force disassembly.
From the most basic circuit diagram to the isolated force analysis, from electrical work to Joule heating, and then to the conversion points of mechanical energy.
Every step, every minute conversion of a physical quantity, was written out with absolute clarity.
The logic was as tight as a heavy-duty steamroller, crushing everything from start to finish.
There were no loopholes, no blind spots left to argue.
Zhou Kai stared at Chen Zhuo’s derivation process.
He was silent for a long time.
He finally understood where he had lost.
"He... the Joule heat from the back electromotive force..."
Zhou Kai muttered to himself.
"He dissected it right out."
Lin Yi stood up.
She picked up a canvas bag from her chair and slung it over one shoulder. A somewhat faded anime pin dangled from it. She lazily prepared to leave the classroom.
She stopped as she passed by Chen Zhuo’s seat.
Chen Zhuo was still in his seat, packing up his things.
Lin Yi looked down at him, her head tilted slightly.
Her gaze held no judgment, only pure curiosity.
She reached out a finger and tapped twice on Chen Zhuo’s desk.
TAP, TAP.
Chen Zhuo looked up, watching her through his black-framed glasses.
"Hey, Captain."
A teasing smile played on Lin Yi’s lips.
"For such a straightforward problem, you broke down and rewrote every single basic formula."
"Writing it all out so densely."
She tilted her chin up.
"Doesn’t your hand get sore?"
Facing this former captain of Provincial Experimental, this carefree girl who had just solved the problem with two lines of equations, he leaned back in his chair, completely relaxed.
He looked into Lin Yi’s eyes, his tone calm and even.
"Intuition is a black box."
Chen Zhuo spoke.
His voice wasn’t loud, but it was perfectly clear in the quiet classroom.
"It can only tell you the result, not the process."
The smile on Lin Yi’s lips faded slightly.
Chen Zhuo looked at her and continued:
"If this weren’t a problem on an exam paper, but a real, spinning, several-hundred-kilowatt industrial motor."
"Your intuition couldn’t calculate which wire would be the first to melt from the heat, nor could it calculate at what speed the bearings would begin to resonate."
Chen Zhuo picked up the water bottle on his desk, unscrewed the cap, and took a sip.
"Breaking down the variables isn’t for getting a perfect score on a test."
"It’s for one hundred percent control."
Lin Yi looked at Chen Zhuo’s calm face. A flash of astonishment crossed her eyes, but she quickly hid it.
She gave a half-hearted eye roll and pouted.
"Boringly obsessive-compulsive,"
she muttered, then turned and continued walking out.
As if to get her own rhythm back, she shouted to Zhou Kai as she passed the lecturer’s platform.
"Zhou Kai, you coming or not?"
"The sweet and sour pork at the high school cafeteria’s second floor. If we’re late, it’ll just be sweet and sour pineapple, no pork."
Lin Yi walked out the door without looking back, her voice echoing in the spacious classroom.
"I crushed you today, so as your former captain, I’ll reluctantly allow you to treat me to a meal to console you. Don’t dawdle, hurry up."
Zhou Kai stood before the lecturer’s desk.
He watched Lin Yi’s back disappear out the door.
Then he turned his head and glanced at Chen Zhuo, who was still in his seat.
He opened his mouth, about to say something to ease the slightly awkward atmosphere in the classroom.
But Chen Zhuo had already stood up.
He zipped up his backpack, grabbed the strap with one hand, and casually slung it over his right shoulder.
He paid no mind to the scratch papers on the lecturer’s desk that were being treated like textbook examples.
"Let’s go."
Chen Zhuo glanced at the still-dazed Zhou Kai, Wang Huashao, and the others.
He started walking out, his voice steady with an unquestionable composure.
"You can’t eat back electromotive force."
"She’s right. If we’re late, only the pineapple will be left."
Chen Zhuo was the first to walk out of the classroom.
He didn’t make a point of calling anyone, nor did he wait for anyone.
But the moment he walked out,
Zhou Kai rubbed his throbbing temples and hurried after him. Wang Huashao snatched the pen from his desk and scurried out as well. Miao Shian and He Gui exchanged a look and silently brought up the rear.
No matter how much back electromotive force had been crammed into their brains just now,
at this point,
everyone was hungry.

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